WASHINGTON â President Donald Trump suggested on Monday that war with Iran could last a month or longer.
âItâs OK,â he continued, if even more time is needed to complete the operation, dismissing potential readiness concerns, even as he maintained that plans were ahead of schedule.
âWeâre already substantially ahead of our time projections. But whatever the time is, itâs OK,â Trump said during a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House as he honored four service members who were killed by Iranian retaliatory strikes over the weekend. âWhatever it takes. … Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.â
He said a four-week plan to remove Iranâs military leadership has already been completed. âAnd as you know, that was done in about an hour,â he said. âSo weâre ahead of schedule there by a lot.â
Trump listed four objectives for the U.S. military operation known as âEpic Furyâ: degrading Iranâs missile capabilities, the destruction of Iranâs navy, ensuring it could never obtain a nuclear weapon and containing its proxy forces by ensuring Iran cannot âcontinue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.â
He said the military is prepared to continue the operation âas long as necessary.â
During his remarks, Trump also pushed back against what he said were suggestions that he could lose interest in the conflict if it continued past âa week or two,â saying, âI donât get bored.â
âThereâs nothing boring about it,â Trump added.
He justified the timing of the strikes by saying that this was âour last best chanceâ to target the threat from the Iranian regime after talks to reach a deal fell apart last week.
âWe thought we had a deal, and they backed out,â he said.
Those talks played out in Geneva, where Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, told his American counterparts that Iran had an âinalienable rightâ to enrich uranium, a senior Trump administration official said. He told NBC News in an interview Sunday that he decided to attack when âthey werenât willing to stop their nuclear research.â
Other military leaders have said the war with Iran wonât be âendless,â though the full scale and scope of the mission remains unclear for now. Trump has also floated different timelines.
Trump has acknowledged the possibility that combat forces may be needed.
Earlier Monday, Trump declined to rule out the possibility of sending troops into Iran, suggesting in an interview with the New York Post that he could have boots on the ground. He said that while other leaders may be averse to doing so, he is not.
âI donât have the yips with respect to boots on the ground â like every president says, âThere will be no boots on the ground.â I donât say it,â Trump said.
In the same interview, when asked about the timeline, Trump predicted that the operation was âgoing to go pretty quickly.â
